Aircrafts are often equipped with spherical plain bearings. As aircrafts are getting lighter in order to reduce fuel consumption and improve maneuverability, bearings used in aircrafts must also be as light as possible.
It is known to use spherical plain bearings made of light materials, such as titanium, but such materials are costly. It is also known to increase the acceptable loads for the envelope of bearings manufactured with light but less resistant materials by adding a coating which locally improves the mechanical characteristics of the material. Such techniques do not prove satisfactory.
The aim of the invention is to provide a new spherical plain bearing, whose structure permits to obtain a bearing which is lighter than the bearings of the prior art, without deteriorating the mechanical properties of the bearing.
To this end, the invention concerns a spherical plain bearing comprising an inner ring and an outer ring, the inner ring comprising an outer spherical contact surface which cooperates with an inner spherical contact surface of the outer ring. This spherical plain bearing is characterized in that the inner ring and/or the outer ring comprises at least one internal cavity running on at least a portion of the circumference of said ring.
Thanks to the invention, the cavities make the rings of the spherical plain bearing lighter without substantially reducing their mechanical characteristics.